Surgical interventions targeting the nucleus caudalis: a systematic review and historical perspective.

Introduction: Chronic facial pain is a prevalent group of conditions and when refractory to common treatments poses a social and economic burden. The last decade has seen a multitude of advancements in the multimodal management of pain. Ablative or neuromodulatory interventions targeting the nucleus caudalis (NC) of the trigeminocervical complex is one such treatment that has remained underutilized. Methods: Here we present a systematic review of the literature and historical perspective regarding interventions targeting the NC. We examine the various intervention techniques, clinical indications, and procedural efficacy. A novel outcome reporting scheme was devised to allow comparison between studies using differing outcome reporting methods. Results: A review of the literature revealed 49 retrospective studies published over the last 80 years, reporting on 858 patients. The most common technique was the open NC dorsal root entry zone nucleotomy/tractotomy (n=515, 60.0%); however, there has been an emergence of novel approaches such as endoscopic (n=6, 0.7%) and spinal cord stimulation (n=20, 2.3%) in the last 10 years. Regardless of intervention technique or preoperative diagnosis, 90.4% of patients demonstrated some improvement from treatment. Conclusion: This systematic review highlights recent advancements in NC intervention technique and the wide range of facial pain syndromes for which these interventions show promising efficacy. New and less invasive techniques continue to emerge, however prospective studies remain absent in the literature. Future work should address efficacy comparisons between intervention type and preoperative diagnosis.

Sustainable business models to create sustainable competitive advantages: strategic approach to overcoming COVID-19 crisis and improve financial performance

Purpose The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the implementation of sustainable business models contributes to improving a firm’s performance during a global crisis, such as the one caused by COVID-19. Based on the triple bottom line theory, the paper explores the relation between the creation of value through solid corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies, United Nations (UN) Global Compact’s (GC) business model proposals and Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) reporting scheme. Design/methodology/approach The present paper studies companies within the European Union, focusing specifically on the long-term impact of using the world’s most widely used standards for sustainability reporting – the GRI’s standards and/or the UNGC management models, as well as on the firm’s performance based on the financial results during COVID-19 crisis. To achieve this goal, the study analyses the share price of firms publicly listed in the FTSEMIB (benchmark index of Italy’s largest trading platform) out of those companies that are implementing the UN and GRI’s tools. Findings Findings show how a commitment to sustainable business models and long-term CSR strategies can contribute to firm’s ability to overcome periods of economic crisis. Furthermore, implementing GRI standards and UNGC guidelines within the business model seems to have a positive impact in overcoming a hard context such as COVID-19. In addition, it contributes to a better understanding of stakeholders’ needs, consumer profiling and value creation. Originality/value This study evaluates firms’ business models, considering the effects of decisions made in the context of COVID-19. The role of UNGC and GRI is evaluated in terms of their contribution to firms’ financial performance and corporate reputation during a context of hardship. Consequently, this study contributes to academia and practice, adding value in areas related to strategic planning and business model design.

Sustainable Liquid Biofuels in New Zealand: Can Sustainability Standards Help Distinguish the Good from the Bad?

<p>Concerns surrounding the environmental and social impacts of biofuel production have led to the rapid development of biofuel sustainability assessment schemes internationally. The New Zealand government is currently developing a voluntary biofuel sustainability reporting scheme. This thesis assesses the extent to which a sustainability standard could support the domestic biofuels industry, and avoid negative environmental and social impacts associated with biofuel production. It describes the current scope of the domestic biofuel industry, discusses relevant environmental and social concerns relating to biofuel production, and reviews international literature surrounding sustainable biofuel initiatives. From a study of the literature New Zealand biofuels appear more sustainable than most, although direct and indirect land-use change should be included for feedstocks from energy crops. Impacts vary across feedstocks and production methods, and each biofuel must be considered in its own merit. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were undertaken with key stakeholders from industry, relevant government agencies, non-governmental organisations, and biofuel experts to discuss the potential for a domestic biofuels sustainability standard. The majority of stakeholders interviewed supported the development of a government-led sustainability standard, which would include principles addressing greenhouse gas emissions, food security and biodiversity loss. There is good evidence to support the movement towards mandatory sustainability requirements, as soon as this is feasible. In the future, biofuels should be supported by technology-neutral policies (such as carbon-pricing) which reward their benefits, rather than indiscriminately promoting biofuels. The development of enforceable sustainability standards is crucial if biofuels are to contribute to a future low-carbon transport sector in New Zealand.</p>

Sustainable Liquid Biofuels in New Zealand: Can Sustainability Standards Help Distinguish the Good from the Bad?

<p>Concerns surrounding the environmental and social impacts of biofuel production have led to the rapid development of biofuel sustainability assessment schemes internationally. The New Zealand government is currently developing a voluntary biofuel sustainability reporting scheme. This thesis assesses the extent to which a sustainability standard could support the domestic biofuels industry, and avoid negative environmental and social impacts associated with biofuel production. It describes the current scope of the domestic biofuel industry, discusses relevant environmental and social concerns relating to biofuel production, and reviews international literature surrounding sustainable biofuel initiatives. From a study of the literature New Zealand biofuels appear more sustainable than most, although direct and indirect land-use change should be included for feedstocks from energy crops. Impacts vary across feedstocks and production methods, and each biofuel must be considered in its own merit. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were undertaken with key stakeholders from industry, relevant government agencies, non-governmental organisations, and biofuel experts to discuss the potential for a domestic biofuels sustainability standard. The majority of stakeholders interviewed supported the development of a government-led sustainability standard, which would include principles addressing greenhouse gas emissions, food security and biodiversity loss. There is good evidence to support the movement towards mandatory sustainability requirements, as soon as this is feasible. In the future, biofuels should be supported by technology-neutral policies (such as carbon-pricing) which reward their benefits, rather than indiscriminately promoting biofuels. The development of enforceable sustainability standards is crucial if biofuels are to contribute to a future low-carbon transport sector in New Zealand.</p>

Honesty of Online Workers: A Field Experiment shows no Evidence of Self-Selection of Cheaters to a Cheating-enabling Work Environment

Does the choice of an environment where cheating is possible lead to its escalation? We analyzed behavior of employees (N = 284) hired to perform a task online. In the manual reporting (MR), employees could overreport the number of hours worked. In the automatic reporting (AR), the hours were counted automatically, making cheating impossible. Two-thirds of the participants were given a chance to choose the reporting scheme, the rest were assigned to the MR directly. Although we found that people in MR slightly overreported the hours worked, employees who chose MR did not overreport their hours more than those assigned to MR at random. Moreover, participants lower in honesty-humility were not more likely to choose MR; only those higher in emotionality were. The results show that even when enabled to cheat, online workers reported their hours worked honestly and the possibility for cheaters to select cheating enabling environments may not always lead to an increase of dishonesty in organizations.

Application and implications of a standardised reporting system for arteriovenous access graft infection

Introduction: The perception that arteriovenous graft infection (AVGi) is frequent and severe is not based on contemporary data from large units using modern AVG. Furthermore, older reports compounded misperceptions by using non-standardised reporting that prevents easy comparison against the alternative modalities. The aim of this article is to use a recently published reporting scheme to analyse the frequency, management and outcome of AVGi in a large series of sequential early-cannulation AVG with long-term follow-up. Methods: A single-center series analysis was performed of 277 early-cannulation AVG with minimum 1-year follow-up (total 120,082 days). Infections relating to the AVG were classified, root-cause analysed and the outcomes presented. Results: Sixteen percent of all AVG implanted (51 episodes) developed infection related to the AVG. Primary AVGi (related to the insertion procedure or within 28 days) occurred in 9 (3%); secondary AVGi (related to AVG in use) occurred 33 times (rate 0.27/1000 haemodialysis days), at a mean of 382 days, and tertiary AVGi (in AVG no longer in use) occurred nine times. Only 1/3 of all AVGi led to bacteraemia, and ½ did not lead to loss of functional access. Summary: AVG infection is not common, caused a systemic infection in only one-third, did not lead to metastatic infection, and importantly, was treatable without loss of access in one-half of all cases. Using an objective system that discriminates between aetiology and outcome allows a more complete objective understanding of relative infection risks and outcomes for AVG that can inform discussions with patients requiring vascular access for haemodialysis.

Two-Hop Monitoring Mechanism Based on Relaxed Flow Conservation Constraints against Selective Routing Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we investigate the problem of selective routing attack in wireless sensor networks by considering a novel threat, named the upstream-node effect, which limits the accuracy of the monitoring functions in deciding whether a monitored node is legitimate or malicious. To address this limitation, we propose a one-dimensional one-class classifier, named relaxed flow conservation constraint, as an intrusion detection scheme to counter the upstream node attack. Each node uses four types of relaxed flow conservation constraints to monitor all of its neighbors. Three constraints are applied by using one-hop knowledge, and the fourth one is calculated by monitoring two-hop information. The latter is obtained by proposing two-hop energy-efficient and secure reporting scheme. We theoretically analyze the security and performance of the proposed intrusion detection method. We also show the superiority of relaxed flow conservation constraint in defending against upstream node attack compared to other schemes. The simulation results show that the proposed intrusion detection system achieves good results in terms of detection effectiveness.

Study on Description of Plant Status at Fukushima Accident by Emergency Action Level

This paper aims at verifying the current Japanese Emergency Response Guideline, especially the “notification” (reporting) scheme of emergency action level (EAL), through the analysis of the progress of Fukushima nuclear accident. We compared timing and emergency classification between two datasets of the plant statuses which expressed by the old prediction-based notification and the latest EAL-based notification, in order to assess the current EAL scheme along the effectiveness of protective action for the local residents. We observed that the plant statuses expressed by the current EAL-based notification gave more engineering insights in the earliest accident phase to identify the accident scenario. However, potential improvement area of the guideline was also observed in the following severe accident management (SAM) phase after the trigger of first precautionary action, where we are required to reduce uncertainties in both processes of the operator's notification and the government's decision making by evaluating the progression speed of the severe accident.